Vampire Hunter Nessie: Sins of the Past
by Master of the Boot
Summary: Second in the series. Vampires and Monsters rule the world, but they don't have what it takes to stop Renesmee C. Cullen; the frontier's cutest vampire hunter. Watch as she battles not only vampires, but some of mankind's most evil weapons of war.


Vampire Hunter Nessie: Tales of the Frontier

Sins of the Past

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight or Vampire Hunter D. Enjoy this not for profit endeavour.

* * *

The world has moved on, but I don't read Stephen King. I think his stuff is overrated. His books are always nine million pages long, boring as heck and he can't write an African-American character worth garbage (Uncle Tom, much?)

Funny thing; the Nobles can't get enough of him. Nearly every Noble's caste has got a coffin, a nuclear reactor, a mini refrigerator (don't ask me why) and a full collection of Stephen King's works.

After Stephen King became a vampire, his books only got worse, with one in nine million turning out half way decent. He's dead now, and good riddance. Did you know that he dissed the author of my favourite book, _The Host_? Nobody gets away with insulting that author and lives.

I have kind of a confession to give, even though I'm not at church; I ran over vampire Stephen King with a herd of cyborg horses and then set fire to the gore. Every fan boy in the world must be trying to kill me right about now; if there were any fan boys left. All the fan boys and girls got smote in the nuclear war.

Is it a pop culture reference if the culture that popularly referenced it is now ten thousand years gone? That's a question for another time. For now, I'm Renesmee Carlie Cullen and I've got some serious business to take care of. But since you're so nice, you can call me Vampire Hunter Nessie ;) (Te-he! Winky face!)

Let's start from the beginning; how did I get here? Why am I chained to a post alongside a young human girl in a dark dungeon with a large tentacle getting perilously close to my bread basket? Well, I was hired to rescue a missing girl from the clutches of a sinister vampire. Yes I know, very original, right?

As it goes, this vampire guy has a thing for watching young girls getting defiled by his various monsters and horrors. I think that somebody never grew up past the mental age of thirteen.

The Noble sits on his throne, flanked by bodyguards of the robotic variety and looking at us through golden opera glasses. He needs those silly glasses like he needs those ludicrous tights. Is he trying out for the role of Robin Hood in a movie?

WOAH! Tentacle has passed all boundaries; it's time to fight back. The human girl screams as I reach up with my booted feet and clasp that slimy appendage. I crush the tentacle with my feet; the boots are covered in all kinds of yucky stuff but this monster needs to learn that touching innocent ladies leads to loss of life and limb.

The creature squeals in pain while its master leans forward in shock. In an instant, a dozen more tentacles are flying at me; these ones are covered in hungry looking mouths. My legs are kicking this way and that, my steel toed, knee high leather boots maim and cripple the soft flesh of the tentacles. For every one I cut in half, three come at me.

And I'm not just defending myself in this dark, mist filled dungeon with monster blood flying everywhere; there is the girl to consider also. She's catatonic; she's way past the point of screaming. For the last seventy two hours she's been exposed to God knows what horrors. The thought that she'll never be normal again, that she'll be scarred by this, that she had to experience this crap just makes me mad. I wish it was that Noble who was getting kissed gently in the face with my boots; I'd kick his head to the moon.

The next thing that happens shocks the Noble out of his vermillion tights but I've been looking forward to this. The explosion isn't heard, even by me, it's felt. The whole castle shakes like it's caught in an earthquake and then the floor starts to fall out. Almost in slow motion, the giant mass of tentacles with no other discernable features falls into a rapidly expanding hole. It's shriek is rapidly lost to the blackness and the intense heat radiating from it.

At some point in every girl's life, she's going to find herself in a damsel in distress situation. Instead of wait for the charming prince, the best thing that a girl can do for herself is stack the deck in her favour.

When I first entered the Castle, I made sure to plant several devices that were times to release a special high energy pulse. That pulse was designed to make the fissile material in a modern nuclear reactor go boom-boom.

A Noble's castle is made from pretty sturdy stuff, but even a place like this can't stand against no less than four nuclear explosions going off within a second of each other.

My big concern is the girl. When I had the chance, I pumped her full of anti-rad meds when Duke I-wear-girly-tights wasn't looking. Still, I'd better get her out of her fast unless she wants to lose her hair.

There's also the concern that it's seven hundred and fifty floors from this dungeon to the bottom most dungeon. I could handle that easy; the girl wouldn't. The Noble has fallen through the hole along with his robot guards. We'll be next.

I move fast, my ungodly sharp teeth attack the handcuffs above my head. They bend and scratch but they don't cut. It'll take me more time than I have to chew through these babies. The metal ring that these are bolted to is another matter; I chew through that like a fat person through a bag of candied peanuts.

We're starting to fall now, the girl's screams. Gravity starts to do the voodoo that you do. We fall and like I always do, I chew through the girls' handcuff; these ones are only titanium.

Alright, part one is over. Part two involves not getting buried alive by a half million story tall castle that is collapsing all around us. I tell the girl, "Shut your eyes." She does as she's told.

Half of me is worried solely about the wellbeing of this seventeen year old girl. The other half of me is grinning from ear to ear. Come on, how cool is this?

I'm jumping off of bits of falling debris like a grasshopper, I punch through floors to work my way through the surface and I move in ways that would make _The Matrix_ green with envy. Ha! Matrix and Green. I'm a comedic genius. Keanu Reeves is good looking. Well, was, anyway.

So I'm holding the girl in my arms like a baby and I'm jumping off of falling rocks in mid air. Am I awesome or am I awesome? Then I see that there is a huge disc of rock about a hundred feet across and it's falling right towards us. There's no room to dodge, so I do the next best thing. I change path against a falling piece of pipe and flatten me and the girl next to a ledge in the wall that's carved out of the mountain that used to make up the foundation of this castle.

The great big disc of death narrowly hits us. It would have instantly killed the girl and it would have put me out of commission for some time. Even I can't make a crack this time.

Still, there is an advantage to this. The moonlight is pouring down from the whole in the sky. Apparently, the whole entire castle fell through and now it's just an empty shell. This is going to make things a lot easier. I try to take it slow now that our lives aren't in any immediate danger. The girl is under enough stress as it is; I don't think she needs to also experience the embarrassment of wetting your pants on top of everything else.

I haul the girl onto my back and I climb; my fingers sink into the rough granite like it's Styrofoam. It takes almost half an hour but we reach the top of what's left of the castle. The climb down the castle/mountain isn't quite so long. The girl doesn't say anything to me during the whole trip. I'd have been less worried if she had been cursing and swearing.

We're at the base of the mountain now, we're surrounded by trees and you can't tell if you're in the twentieth century or the tenth millennium. I'm eager to get this girl home but first I have to take care of a few things.

I take a few steps and then I put myself at what is a comfortable distance between me and the girl. Her hair is long but not as long as some girls I've seen in this decade; it's brown and it frames her pale and delicate face. Through the long centuries of their domination, the Nobility have had a habit of genetically engineering humans to match up with their own standards of beauty. I'd bet anything that this girl was made to please a Noble's eye.

I turn on my cuteness but not too much; I need to appear friendly, not overwhelming. I smiled at her; she didn't respond. I started to speak to her, trying not to sound patronizing, "Hello Muriel, I'm Renesmee, but you can call me Nessie." She blinks; well, it's better than nothing.

Did you know that when I was born, the name "Renesmee" was considered weird? Today my full name doesn't even warrant a glance; not when there are guys out there named Bingo Bullow, John M Braselli Pluto the Eight, Dr. Krolock and even a guy named Shite. Apparently Shite was from another country and they spoke a different language, but it was still very shocking to hear his name.

Where was I? Oh yeah, I was trying to talk the girl out of suicide long enough for me to get her to some serious professional help.

I go on talking to her, "Muriel, I just want you to know that the danger is past. I'm going to take you to your family. If you want, I can get help for you if you need it; or if you just want someone to talk to."

Muriel seems to understand even though her features barely twitch. Without my super duper vision, I wouldn't have seen that little flicker of intelligence.

Returning to list of objectives; number one: buy lip gloss. . . check. Number two: break into Duke Aberle "Girly Tights" Aehrenthal's castle in the heartland of Osterreich and do a good rescue. . . check. Number three: eat cake. . . not check.

Well, I'm just acting like a ninny. I can't get the girl home and eat cake until I get off these silly handcuffs. Alright, time to put these pearly whites of mine to work. Okay handcuffs, feel the wrath of Nessie's teeth.

Wait.

I can't see it because it's behind me, but I can hear the wind rushing off of it. I follow the first rule of vampire hunting, don't look up, just run. So I do just that. My legs explode from under me and I try to snatch up Muriel without doing too much damage to her.

PAIN!

As you guessed, I'm in pain. That's only because somebody took their claws and ripped open my back like an early Christmas present. Judging by the extremity of the pain and the sickening feeling of having your ribs sliced open; I'd say that you can see my lungs.

More PAIN!

My attacker slashes at me again. I figure that he means to slash my back again but he missed and gets my lower leg. Not only has this guy slashed my marble like skin like paper but he's ruined my sexy black tank top and he owes me a new boot.

To quote Iago the parrot; that's it, now I'm mad!

Running isn't an option for me with my slashed calf. I need to stand and fight; and I need to do it while wearing unbreakable handcuffs, sporting an injured leg and carrying a mentally scarred human. Piece o' cake.

When you're running at more than a thousand feet per second, you can't really stop on a dime. I suddenly stop running and plant both feet on the ground. My injured leg hurts like a son of a gun; the sudden impact of stopping half tore it open just when it started to heal.

My attacker is right behind me; there are about twenty moves that I could make like this. My attacker is surprised by my sudden stop and I'm counting on that. My injured leg stays underneath me to support my weight; I virtually skate along the forest floor.

My other leg, shoots from under my body and lands squarely in my attacker's stomach. My sensitive hearing can hear the breath rushing from his body as well as the squish of organs rupturing.

Holding Muriel in my handcuffed arms, I squat low and finally come to a complete stop. Thank you for flying Air Nessie, we hope you fly with us again sometime soon.

I put down Muriel, not as gently as I'd want to. I'm in a bit of a rush; I need to drop off the girl at the cost of her comfort otherwise she might be dead in a minute.

My assailant is on the ground wheezing and coughing; I charge at the bastard like the wind. I'll let you guess who sliced open my back and ruined my boot. Here's a clue: he wears red tights. Time to tango the fandango.

Unlike the type of vampires that my parents are, the vampire Nobility require oxygen to function. They can be winded but it won't slow them down for very long. As I run at him, he slashes at me in mid wheeze. I jump over him and avoid his six inch long claws.

Nimble as a monkey, I land behind him and then start to strangle him with my handcuffs. You don't need super hearing to hear the crunching noise of his windpipe.

His hands tug at the chain that's ending his life. It resists his claws like it resisted my teeth. The Duke's legs kick and he propels both of us backwards. We slam into a tree, snapping it almost in half; poor tree.

The impact did him more damage than me; he might be as strong as I am but he's only flesh and bone. I feel a sudden boost of pain from my mutilated back, but that's neither here nor there. I pull harder on the chain; there's a half pop, half crunch as the chain imbeds itself into the muscles and arteries of his neck.

He starts to thrash some more. No! It ends now!

Gritting my teeth, I pull harder still on my handcuffs. He makes a funny noise and from the angle I'm at, I catch a glimpse of his right eye nearly popping out of its socket.

CRUNCH!

The sound is wet and stiff as the chain breaks through his neck and violently snaps his head from his body. Instantly, all resistance from Tights Man ends. The head bounces like a rubber ball and I fall flat on my back. Like any fight, there's a brief sense of emptiness. I feel almost like this didn't have to happen, but it did.

I could stay here and talk about my problems all day but the girl I'm supposed to be rescuing is lying catatonic on the ground. Oh crap.

Instantly, I'm by her side and I'm gently trying to get her to respond. "Muriel, Muriel, are you okay?" I know that she's not okay but I'd rather that she told me herself.

No response; not good. I'll have to bring out the big guns. I turn up my cuteness. When I was in school, all the humans seemed to love me and want to be my friend. Even other vampires seemed to want to do nothing but give me presents. That or they wanted to kill me; there was very little middle ground.

With cuteness at full blast, I asked Muriel, "Excuse me, could you please get up?"

Her response is immediate, bright and slightly shocked, "Oh, sorry about that; I guess that I must have drifted off."

Alright . . .

"I'm sorry, but I must be lost; mother and father will surely be looking for me by now. Could you point me back to the village?" The girl seems genuinely lost and she seems slightly afraid of me, despite my cuteness.

While I'm happy that she doesn't fully trust strangers (never talk to strangers) I know that this girl has got some serious problems. I've seen this before; they'll see something so horrible that they'll repress the memory of it. Problem is, sooner or later that memory hits, and it hits with force to compensate for the time that it's been repressed. My guess is that sometime tomorrow, something will remind Muriel of these last seventy two hours and it'll all hit her like a ton of bricks.

If my instincts are on the mark, then I'd better send an e-mail to that shrink that I'm friends with and tell him to arrive in _Sternberg_ village double time. Yeah, I know that nobody calls it e-mail any more. Well, e-mail sounds catchier than whatever it's called today. Electronic ticklers; that sounds like a sexual overture.

Oh wait, Muriel. "Hi, I'm Nessie. I'd be happy to take you to your village, just follow me."

I feel bad for her, I really do. I'm sure that she had her fair share of flaws. I'm willing to bet any money that she wasn't perfect. But I do not think that she deserved to be abducted by a Noble and then forced to watch half a dozen girls just like her get tentacle raped to death.

Many Nobles claim that humans are only cattle while they are the true masters of the world. I call vampire bull crap on that. Cattle get better treatment than humans get at the hands of the vampire Nobility. Humans don't treat their cattle half as badly as they get treated by the Nobles.

When I was growing up, we had laws against the abuse of animals. We didn't treat all animals great; some of them got treated pretty bad. But on the whole we loved our pets and even the cattle got to go outside once in a while.

During my first rebellious period, I ran away with my friend Jake to protest the existence of factory farms. There were hundreds of humans protesting that day. I can name only one Noble who ever protested against human suffering and I never got his name.

It's part of the reason for the vampire downfall; the humans and mutants and demons are giving it to the vampires as good as they've gotten it.

* * *

I feel bad for Muriel, but I smell the best smelling cake that I've smelled in five hundred years. Saliva is pooling in my mouth and my stomach rumbles like a golem falling down a flight of stairs. I haven't eaten all month; nothing is going to stop me from getting that cake.

_Ding!_

A cute little bell goes off as I open the door to the shop. Like a bloodhound's but keener, my little nose tells me much. They've got an old microwave oven here; probably scavenged from the wreckage of some vampire's castle. Those guys love their microwaves.

Interesting, they have a wood burning stove here. Oh goodness, this is going to rock. An old style thermal stove produces much better flavour than a microwave or a protein resynthesizer. Protein resynthesizers make food taste like ABC gum; I can tell, my sense of taste is far keener than a humans.

Everybody looks at me but only for a second; my supernatural beauty wins me a lot of friends but part of it is that I can walk into a crowd unnoticed if I need to. It's only when I start interacting with people that they feel inclined to worship the ground I stand on. Now as for my old love interest D, he couldn't walk into town with all the girls and half the guys automatically falling in love with him. I pity him for it actually; some of the people that were attracted to him were really ugly. And I'm talking like Freddy Krueger ugly.

That's not really important right now; I can mourn for lost love when there isn't delicious, whole-wheat carrot cake with frosting and whipped cream made out of real milk that was taken from a genetically engineered cow this morning. Am I making you hungry?

I stand up straight, adjust my top and say to the waitress, "I'd like thirty carrot cakes, please?" She looks at me like I'm insane; this is nothing new. My lungs and heart are very small, leaving a great deal of room for my stomach. So when I eat, I really eat.

Eventually, I repeat myself and the waitress scurries off. I'd better tip her well for having to deal with my unusual demands.

I gently sit down in my chair very gently. One advantage of living in this century is that furniture is much sturdier than it was in the early twenty first. My body is made of a substance that imitates many natural properties of the sturdier kinds of marble. A side effect of that is that I weight eight hundred and thirty seven pounds. It wasn't so bad when I was still growing, I was more human then; my tissues were less dense. Thank goodness that my human mother didn't have to carry a hundred and sixty pound baby. I was rough company in the womb; I'll leave it at that.

I want cake! What's the deal in the kitchen? I can pay for the cake; I even showed them the money. Oh man, I'm going crazy with the hunger!

Do you know why I'm eating carrot cake instead of something else? It is December twenty-fourth. It's Christmas Eve! Every Christmas Eve since I started eating solid food, I've always eaten a carrot cake.

You don't know what Christmas is? Oh damn it all. Nobody knows what Christmas is anymore except for my family. The Nobles succeeded where the Grinch failed. DAMN THEM ALL! Wait; hello laddy.

Sitting two tables from me, framed in glorious sunlight is the foxiest man I've seen in some time. He's got to be young, can't be any older than twenty, and that's being generous. His hands are calloused and his fingernails look a bit broken, but his teeth are well kept, he's clean shaven and I could positively drown in those eyes.

I think I'm starting to tingle . . . in my special place. The boy is so hot. It's almost creepy, he's nearly the age that my father is permanently frozen into . . .

No, get out of my head, dad! Get out of my head! Focus on the boy! Alright, that's better. Tingly feeling returning. That's good; breasts becoming sensitive. Here I go; prepare yourself for the greatest pickup line you've ever heard.

I've got long legs and unfortunately, big feet, I eat up the distance between us. The boy is shocked, he looks up at me, instantly taken in by my beauty but there is wariness on his face. I like intelligence in a man. I use my perfect pick up line, "Hi, I'm Renesmee; can I buy you a cup of coffee?" It's perfect, isn't it?

He's surprised, but pleasantly so. I can see the tiny smile that he's trying to suppress. He says to me in an adorable voice, "Sorry, miss, but I've got to go back to the farm soon."

My face falls for an instant, but then he picks up his fumble.

"But when I finish the day's work, maybe I could meet you at where you're staying?"

Oh sugar, you just said the magic words. I just barely touch him with my hand that burns with superhuman body temperature; I can detect a spike in his heart rate and body heat, "I'm staying in room two-oh-three at the Heilig Hotel."

He nearly orgasms in his pants, but somehow he manages to save it for the right time. "See you at sundown?" he slurs slightly.

I give him a light little kiss on the forehead, "Consider it a done deal." He doesn't really walk out of the place, he sort of floats out. I guess that he must have the power of precognition; because I am a goddess between the sheets. You know how guys and some girls have fantasies about foxy superhero girls? Well, those fantasy girls have got nothing on me. I'm funny, smart, and stylish, I can cook and I'm an expert in two hundred martial arts styles. I'm the perfect girl . . . except for my big feet. Oh rats. Okay; so I'm not perfect; but I'm almost.

Yep; speaking of perfect, my cake is here :) The waitress gives me a sideways look at she carries four carrot cakes towards me. I all but laugh and clap as she puts the steaming masses of fluffy delight on the table in front of me. I think I'm in heaven.

As the plates go _clink_, the waitress says, "The other twenty six cakes will be right along, madam."

I say to her nonchalantly, "It's alright; take as long as you need." As of this moment, I've got no time to think about vampires, the apocalypse of yesteryear, or anything like that. It's Christmas Eve and I'm eating my favourite desert. It's Christmas Eve; even if I'm the only one that knows it.

You should see me dig into that cake; I'm a pro at it. When I was growing up, I fought my parents like a stubborn mule when they tried to get me to eat human food instead of blood. The first human meal that I fully ate and actually enjoyed was a rotisserie chicken seasoned with thyme and turmeric. I had a little nibble and decided that it was pretty good. Mom and dad were horrified when they saw me eat half that chicken in one bite. To be fair, it was a really small chicken; but dad went crazy. In his day, women weren't supposed to enjoy eating.

I feel like I'm eating a reasonable amount of cake with each bite. A quarter cake per bite seems pretty reasonable; am I wrong? Am I wrong? I didn't think so.

Like the happy little girl that I am; I eat the first cake and then the other ones. There's a bit of a pause after the first five cakes; it would look like I'm too fast for the kitchen. Heh, slowpokes.

In the pause I wonder about my weapons. I contacted my family after cashing in the bounty; cause that's what I do. I spent about an hour talking with each relative of mine. At once it was a very happy but painful ritual. I love my family to death; I mean it, I'd die for them. It hurts sometimes to be away from them for so long. It's the hardest on my mom, it's not just that I'm her baby; when she was still human; my dad left her for a period of time. Of all the Cullens, she handles rejection the worst.

Still, talking to mom again was like seeing the sun after a long time spent in the night. There's nothing quite like it.

I had chitchat with Auntie Alice. She has the power to see the future; I know, no big deal. Apparently she told me that my two shotguns were a write off, but my bat and my sniper rifle were okay. The bat I found easily enough but my sniper rifle, that I've named Davey, was badly damaged.

More yummy cake!

Where was I? Oh yeah, my tools. Davey is being repaired by Crazy Ahmed's son, Wacko Mohammed. Poor Ahmed passed away sixty years after that job with Ivan Klementovitch. Fortunately, his son Mohammed is every bit as good as his father and he keeps me well stocked with better anti-armour and anti-personnel bullets than you can buy or steal anywhere else.

I bet you're wondering why they're called Crazy Ahmed and Wacko Mohammed. Well, Ahmed had this thing that he liked to do before he became too sick to walk. During the month of Ramadan, between the hours of two and four in the morning; he'd run naked through the streets of his hometown with a pumpkin on his head. His son is slightly less crazy; Mohammed likes to cover himself in engine oil, wrestle with a transsexual and then eat an entire roll of duct tape.

Hey, I don't judge what they do in their free time; but I think their genes are screwed up.

Back on track; it'll take a week for my sniper rifle to be repaired and I'll have to buy new shotguns from a gun dealer on the island of Svalbard. The kleptocracy of Svalbard is probably the only place on earth where vampires are not what people fear most. The place is a barren, criminal controlled chunk of ice in the northern sea; far from where the climate control satellites are functioning. If you have money and you can defend yourself; Svalbard is a paradise. You can buy anything there, including cocaine and Gucci dresses.

You can buy anything in Svalbard except for this delectable carrot cake. I'm on my twelfth one. Oh, come on, the cakes aren't that big. They're only a foot across each and half a foot high.

So to defend myself until I get my main guns back, I'm packing my depleted uranium cored, and barbed wire wrapped baseball bat and my brand new laser pistol. I can't wait to try that baby out.

Oh boy! Cake number fifteen is here! I couldn't be happier. I love cake, I love-

I don't love that music that's suddenly begun playing from the jukebox in the corner. It's a creepy song that makes my belly turn to lead and causes my appetite to die. I listen to those horrible lyrics that follow the creepy music.

_From the night, from the mist_

_Steps the figure_

_He stands six foot six, head and shoulders_

_No one really knows his name for sure_

_Pray he never comes knocking at your door_

I swallow the cake in my mouth but it tastes like sand now. The song that's playing brings back bad memories of a bad man.

_Say that you once bough a heart or new corneas_

_But somehow you never managed to square with your debts?_

_He won't bother to write or to phone,_

_He'll just rip the still beating heart from your chest!_

I manage to grab hold of my waitress, "Excuse me; whatever cakes you've got baking, just give me those ones to go. I'm not hungry anymore."

She nods and acts as if my sanity has returned but I grab onto her smock; it seems to annoy her. Thankfully, she's very professional and doesn't immediately shove me off. Slightly embarrassed of myself, I let her go but I can't help but ask, "I'm sorry, miss; where did you find this song."

Suddenly, the waitress's face is touched by something akin to reverence. "That song, along with all the music in that jukebox was a gift from a great man who came to our village a century ago."

I don't like where this is heading; I've heard variations on this particular story ad nauseam.

"A hundred years ago, our village was stricken by a great disaster. The rivers and lakes around our village became foul; animals that drank from them died and we had nothing to irrigate our crops with."

Yes, that's familiar also; sudden disasters are a trademark of his. The waitress continues as if this story is standard learning materiel for school children.

"Things got worse; a foul miasma came from one of the larger lakes and poisoned many people. Those that didn't die were mutated into horrible fish men."

Fish men. It must have been really scary when it happened.

"The town's population was reduced from two thousand to just over a hundred. Things seemed hopeless until he came along."

I can only guess who he is. Insert Sarcasm here.

"He was tall, dark and beautiful. He looked around this town and made us an offer. He told us that he would solve our problem and in return, the five strongest and smartest people in the village would join him in his quests and adventures."

"And so even though we were terrified and starved from days of hiding; the five strongest and bravest of us volunteered; we all knew who they were." She smiles a bit at this, as if she wished that she could have been there in those extraordinary times.

I know better, I can guess more accurately than these people know what happened to those poor five people. They were suckered in by the use of his hypnotic powers and promised adventure and excitement. In the end, they probably became either his sex slaves or his science experiments. I've seen what became of one of those people; it wasn't something that even Satan would have wished on his worst enemies.

I tune out the rest of the woman's tale. Dracula saved the village, the five people left town, he left behind a jukebox, the fish people were cured and some other junk. Blah, blah, blah; end of story.

Yes, it was Dracula here. That loopy mass murdering psycho was here. Get rid of any romantic notions that you have about him; he's about as romantic as Heinrich Himmler and the Joker having children together.

You see, children, Dracula is what you call a "sociopath." That means that he is totally incapable of guilt and even though he's polite when he needs to gain something; he'd rather kill you than spit on you. Historical people are rarely nice as their autobiographies say that they are.

I just start to stare at my cake; I can't eat any more. Of all the places to spend Christmas Eve; I had to pick a place that is pumped full of Father Drac's favourite tunes.

_Now you could run. You could hide. You could try to._

_But he always has a way of finding you_

_He will come at your weakest hour_

_When no one is around who might rescue you_

I really hate that music. Gingerly, I begin to finger the handle of the laser pistol in its holster. Lasers are great weapons but they're very energy intensive. Also, they're very poor against heat shielded targets and if you screw with the battery then you'd best evacuate the area post haste. Even so, lasers make a lovely charred smell when you point them at something you hate.

As I contemplate shooting that jukebox and ending that ungodly music, I wonder how badly people would react to seeing that jukebox burst into flames.

I hate _Repo! The Genetic Opera_. It's not just that it's Dracula's favourite musical; I hate the damn thing. I hate the characters; Shiloh annoys me, Rotti Largo disgusts me and Graverobber is creepy. If you like it, then fine. But I, Renesmee Carlie Cullen, do not like _Repo. _So there.

I stick my tongue out at you _Repo_ lovers! See it!

**Ka-Pow!**

Hmmmm. Something just interrupted my reverie. Whatever it was, it blew a hole through my stomach and I can see the cake that I just ate now. Man, it's a lot less appetizing than when I first laid eyes on it.

Rule number ninety two of vampire hunting; assess the damage before going on. I wiggle the toes on my left foot but it's impossible to even feel the toes on my right foot. Okay, my spine isn't completely totalled.

Instantly, I'm up and out of my chair. My right leg might as well be made out of wood; it's operating on reflex and I'm unable to directly control it. Still, my disconnected leg seems to get the gist of what I want out of it.

I get up and scream for the waitress to get down; not like she needs any further instruction on my part, the poor girl is already crawling towards the kitchen. If this is like any other frontier town I've visited; this place is stocked to the gunnels with guns. Ha-Hah! Even in the face of certain death I am still funny. Well, I'm sort of funny . . . okay; that one sucked. Give me a break! I'm trying my best!

Without waiting for another shot; I flip over the table I'm sitting at and go behind it for cover. My laser barrel peeks over the edge of the stained and burned wooden surface. There's a fairly large hole in the wall but no hole opposite of it. Good; that means that my body was dense enough to prevent whatever shot me from over penetrating. It means that the bullet didn't hurt anybody other than me.

As I glance down I can see two things. First, I can see the half digested cake that's spilling out of me like it's a blob trying to get free. Gross; I'd puke but I don't have time to puke. There are potentially dangerous guys out there and the next shot may be a lucky one for them. And two; I can see what looks like an extremely ancient model of large calibre bullet sticking out of my gaping stomach wall amidst all the mass of brown once-cake and blood.

I recognize the design; this was a popular ordinance used by the Maoist Supremacy during the last five hundred years of the Pan-World Wars. This is a _Garkan-42_, a two point five millimetre bullet that's designed to get lodged in a target and explode according to a timing system.

I have no idea how much time is left in that bullet so I yank the darn thing out and chuck it out the whole in the wall. I'm afraid that I'll hurt somebody; but chances are that whatever made that shot scared the daylights out of everyone.

I don't have to wait long, because I hear an earth shattering kaboom that manages to blow out every window in this place.

From outside I can smell blood and I can hear the screams that accompany the _swish_ of blades and the tear of flesh. Time for me to get back to work.

I hobble towards the door of the restaurant; my spine is already starting to repair itself because I can just begin to feel my leg again. Sunlight streams into the place as my assailant kicks down the door of the establishment; it's not a vampire attack.

The first thing that strikes me about my enemy is its distinctly mechanical nature. The second thing that stands out is its inherently roughshod look. I've seen more than my fair share of Noble built cyborgs; this thing isn't. The vampire nobility are incapable of building something that's so blatantly ugly.

No; just like the bullet that hit me earlier, this thing is a human creation. Arguably I'm looking at one of the greatest weapons every built by the Maoist Supremacy of Tibet. It's a Marauder.

It stands fairly tall, although it might have been shorter or taller as a human. As I said, it's part mechanical and part flesh. The fleshy parts look like they've been hacked up by a butcher and then stapled onto a humanoid frame. Whole patches of skin, real and synthetic are either ready to fall off or have fallen off. Red muscles tense and glister; I can see microscopic wires overlaying them.

It used to be female; one arm has been completely blown off. Evidently, it needs to learn that bullets without proper postage will be returned to sender.

I raise my gun and I fire at those incongruously white, pearly teeth. I squeeze the trigger and the colourless laser burns a hole in those incisors and then charbroils the hindbrain of the Marauder.

As I put my new handgun to the test; the waitress and the head cook chose _now_ of all times to burst out of the kitchen with laser rifles in tow. I want to scream for the idiots to get back but it's too late.

The shot that was intended to put down the Marauder instead makes it run around like a headless chicken. There's a gun that's crudely attached to its head; that one fires off several more Garkan bullets. I can tell because I can actually see them as they fly through the air. Meanwhile, the lady Marauder's remaining arm fires off jets of flaming gasoline and exploding shrapnel bullets.

The waitress and the cook try to run back into the kitchen; to them the Marauder looks like a little tornado. Think of the Tasmanian Devil from Bugs Bunny.

Since they're human; I'm obliged to take a few shrapnel bullets to give them time to escape the building. I can feel the razor sharp shards of metal perforate my lungs; punch a small hole in my heart and put more of my blood on the floor where it does not belong.

I'm through playing games. I grab the bat off of my back; I give it a kiss because I never got to use it on my last mission.

Batter up!

I vault up and forwards and swing my bat in an arc down on the Marauder's head. The impact of the ironwood bat drives her head into her shoulders, drives her shoulders into her abdomen and drives her abdomen into her hips. Have you ever crushed a pop can that was full of pop? That's what the Marauder looks like above the waist, except with blood instead of soda.

The hole in my heart hurts like heck and my active movement tore open my stomach again slightly. To make matters even worse, I've got ABC cake all over my boots with a healthy dose of my own blood. ABC stands for "_already been chewed._"

I normally only swear once every hundred and thirty years, but I'll make an exception for today; there's gonna be hell to pay. There; now there will be no more swearing for the next hundred and thirty years. It's a promise.

For now; I gots to kill me some Marauders. These things never travel alone; where there's one, there's fifty of them and then fifty more and fifty more.

Sure enough, the Marauders are doing their fair share of marauding. I see houses smashed open, fires everywhere and general mayhem and destruction.

Marauders are like ants; by themselves they have almost nothing in the way of intelligence or tactical genius. In large numbers; they can work efficiently and quickly against almost any adversary.

A number of the town's lawmen are taking cover behind some overturned vehicles but they're clearly fighting a losing battle. That's the beauty of humans; if properly motivated, they'll give up everything they have for their community and family. It's a trait that the Nobles are sorely lacking.

The town sheriff fires at one of the Marauders with a stake rifle. The gas powered weapon fires a rifled steel stake three feet long directly at the heart of the Marauder. Its armour deflects the lengthy projectile. The "armour" is really a block of ultra dense metal chained in place over the heart. The Marauder smiles at the sheriff and launches a counter attack in the form of a self directed flying power drill. Thinking fast, I shoot the drill thing out of the air; it would have burrowed into the lawman's body and eaten him through like Swiss cheese.

The Sherriff and one of his deputies both fire a stake at the half mechanical monster whose face is stapled to stay in a painful smile. One stake hits it in the liver; the other one hits the creature right in the eye. The thing stumbles forward and with its dying impulses, makes to aim at the Sheriff's head with a stake rifle of its own, built into its left arm.

That guy is lucky I was there. My laser gun burns through his lower leg and throws him of balance. The Sheriff goes down with a stake to the shoulder; the Marauder goes down for good.

Alrighty then; I've survey the surroundings for too long now. It's time for me to get back into action. I spot a Marauder who has a ridiculously large tank on his back attached to a flamethrower. Like all Marauders, this one's face is mutilated to permanently smile. The corners of his mouth are held up with mini meat hooks. Whoever invented these things; I hope he's burning in eternal torment right now.

Using the last of the charge in my battery charge; I shoot a weak point in the flame thrower tank and blow him and four of his buddies to kingdom come.

To the left; I see a troika of Marauders that are laying down suppressing fire on a separate group of lawmen. My leg is getting more control into it; I spring at them and then use my bat to knock their heads off in perfect recreations of Barry Bonds home runs.

Eleven O'clock! A female Marauder with a shiny chrome head is piling up corpses. Marauders aren't stronger or faster than vampires, but they're still one of the best anti-Noble weapons ever created.

In the old days, the Maoists would drop these things deep into Noble held territory. There, the Nobles would fight armies of these things. The Nobles would suffer five percent casualties and the Marauders would suffer ninety percent casualties. The next day, the Marauders would be at their previous numbers as if yesterday's losses never happened.

Even though every single Marauder is a unique as a snowflake; they all have one thing in common. Every Marauder is capable of assimilating a human and turning them into another Marauder. That's why they're piling up the corpses; so that they can be injected with the Marauder nano-robots and the process begins. In twelve to fifteen hours, if a corpse is very fresh or if it's still alive, it can become a fully functioning and battle worthy Marauder.

Twenty feet ahead of me; the female Marauder is having a pair of injectors unfold from her teeth, almost like a parody of a vampire's fangs. I'm not about to let her add to their numbers. I hit her with the bat across the stomach; she's literally torn in half. The top half tries to crawl at me, but my lame leg has got back most of its feeling and so I stomp on her chromed head.

Coming down the street are a gang of fourteen Marauders. What horrifies me is that these Marauders were no older than seven years old. They're only children!

The child Marauders have all had their organic eyes replaced with lifelike synthetics or great big lenses. The effect is that they all look like they're soulless; which they are. A Marauder is like a shark; it only does two things in life: kill and make more of its kind. They're completely relentless and they can't be reprogrammed. During the peak of their scientific prowess; the Nobles couldn't figure out how to reprogram Marauders so instead they destroyed them all.

I reload my laser pistol while trying not to cry as I kill the Marauder children with my baseball bat. The children try to slash at me; their hands have been replaced with a jumbled assortment of gun barrels and long surgical looking knives. Each Marauder is partly built out of scrap metal; the nano-robots in their bodies then modify that metal to serve their structural needs. The battery has been ejected; it's a simple matter for me to reload a new battery one handed.

It's not easy to smash open a seven year old's head with a bat, but I get by. The hard part is to remember that they're not kids anymore, they're only Marauders. In no time, the child Marauders are dead and my gun is reloaded. I take the emotion that I feel and I use it, turning it outward.

My laser strikes at strategic points; I shoot them in their ammo magazines and fuel tanks, blasting them to bits. I laser one's head off but there must be some kind of computer in the chest because it keeps on walking like nothing happened. It doesn't survive my Louisville Slugger.

Suddenly I'm cornered by another female Marauder; like all the others, her face is grotesquely altered into a permanent grin. I can see her guts; they're very clearly made of plastic and are protected by a plate of bulletproof glass held in place with rusty rivets. Her whole left arm is made of heavy metal and it makes her look like something out of Hellboy.

What really disturbs me about this one is that she's got long brown hair that almost identically resembles Muriel's. The resemblance is eerie; they might have been relatives. Muriel lives on the far side of town; hopefully she got to the local shelter.

I start running at the mechanical menace; my spine is fully healed and my stomach will soon follow. Muriel's lookalike raises her metal arm and suddenly, her fist shoots out on the end of a length of chain. Hits me right in the bloody face.

I have two words for you: ow.

The metal fist breaks my friggin nose! It hurts all the more that I ran into it. How many times can I get angry today before it just gets annoying? The Marauder's eyes are completely dead, there's nothing in them. Still, I get mad at it.

The chain partly retracts and the Marauder starts to swing her metal fist like a ball and chain with a fist instead of a ball. Reacting with lightning reflexes, I grab my gun gently in my teeth and catch the metal fist in my hand. My turn, biotch!

That's not a swear word!

I don't say anything to the Marauder; I just growl at her. Then, I pull as hard as I can on that chain and she flies at me. Pretty as you please I sidestep the flying Marauder and swing her in a huge arc. She slams into the ground with enough force to destroy any software and fleshy organs inside of her.

Not to be outdone by myself, I swing her again, this time into another Marauder. The pair of them blows up like three-d puzzles being taken apart in fast motion. There's almost no blood; they're deliberately designed that way. It makes sense that your foot soldiers have almost no blood when your enemies are blood drinkers.

I jump over the blood, fecal matter, gore and sprockets in order to spare my boots any more misery. It's at the point something strange starts to happen; the Marauders are retreating. Hold the phone; Marauders don't retreat. They only withdraw from the battlefield when they've been reduced to at least ten percent of their original number. And even then, they only flee to assimilate more humans and rebuild themselves.

I know this because I remember all of it; I was there. I was there when the Maoists established themselves. I remember when they met their end. For almost three thousand years, the Marauders outlived the government that built them.

There are so many unanswered questions. Why have the Marauders appeared again after their supposed extinction? Why are they leaving the bodies behind? They're not even trying to assimilate more human bodies, living or dead.

Right now I don't have the answer, but I have a plan. The Marauders flee the town; some of them are clumsy and loping while others prance like ballerinas. It's like watching a fire drill at the Cyberpunk festival; or like the Borg meets the hockey mask wearing lunatics from _Mad Max: Beyond Thunder Dome_.

I kill all of the Marauders. Not a single one of them arrives at where they might have been called to. It was a fair number of them; me and the townsfolk barely made a dent in their numbers. I'm pretty sure that the waitress and the head cook got in a few good licks. I bet that if the cook were her he'd try and use these guys as ingredients for his new soup. The last time I ate soup in a small village, it tasted mighty strange. That's why I only eat the carrot cake.

So I've got seventy dead Marauders; not one of them tried to fight me during the course of their retreat. This is a mystery worthy of Nancy Drew. Fortunately, I happen to be a master sleuth in addition to a vampire hunter and collector of _Archie_ comics. I mean, come on; Jughead is adorable. He's the only person that could match the gorging power of the Quileute wolves.

Back to basics: I've got seventy dead Marauders and I just happen to be a super sleuth. In the detective department, I could kick Batman's butt. The first order of business is to open up one of these bodies and examine the software that controls them. I'll need to extract all relevant data.

When the Maoists were finally destroyed by the Nobles, the Maoist leadership destroyed the mechanisms that controlled the Marauders and permanently solidified the programming. Even though they've had no external control for thousands of years, the Marauders should still have the apparatus necessary to interact with those mechanisms of control. Some parts of the Marauder design never change.

I know enough about computers old and new that I can probably hack into what passes for memory chips in their screwed up and mutilated brains. I've got the right gear with me in my room; it's a personal guarantee that I will find who controlled these Marauders and where they came from in the first place.

For now though, I've got slightly more important stuff to do.

* * *

It's been three days and already I'm thinking of the band _Three Days Grace_. I've always wondered if I'm crazy but I just don't know it.

Detective work is my specialty when I see a whole village that's destroyed, I've just got to go in and help out. I'm not Roland Deschain where I can just ignore everything around me while wondering if the Dark Tower at the end of the Universe has a gift shop.

Plus, this was a wonderful excuse for my family to all gather together in one place. Since the world ended, the Cullen family has been forced to change our habits. For one thing; we can't afford any longer to act like one big family unit. Like animals in the wild, we split up and reorganize every so often.

The reason for this is that the rules of the Volturi are still in effect. As a matter of fact; the rules of the Volturi only became tighter. New rules were instated; the Unstet could no longer live in groups larger than three for any greater amount of time than a week and we can't expose what we are to humans. Yep, my family's kind of vampire is called Unstet. I've been meaning to ask my parents if that word has any meaning but it keeps on slipping my mind.

The Volturi are pretty sore; they have never entirely forgotten their fall from power nor will they ever forgive it. They are a group of highly powerful Unstet who are very ancient and are the rulers of our kind. Among their ranks are vampires who have talents that could easily knock down a Noble like a house of cards. Sadistic little Jane has the eye of pain; she generates the illusion ultimate agony from heck. Zafrina is a projector of illusions; her illusions are like 3-D Imax movies while the best Noble illusion casters are like black and white silent films. A new recruit, Herbert West, has the power to bring back the dead. The only problem is that the people he resurrects either end up becoming mindlessly violent or mentally unstable. Still, he's been instrumental in bringing back dozens of talented vampires killed in previous conflicts with the Nobility. His revenants have proven useful to the Volturi's cause, despite their insanity.

The three leaders of the Volturi have had their power increase since the Capital was wrested from Noble control. They've become the new Mafia of the twelfth millennium AD; the behind the scenes rulers of the remaining humans. They own, equip and train sixty percent of all vampire hunters in existence; it's best not to mess with them.

Still, their rules very clearly allow our family to meet every so often and I'm glad they come. For the townspeople's sakes, our story is that my family are wealthy millionaires from the Capital and that I'm their genetically engineered daughter. I pity Uncle Emmet; he has to watch me do superhuman feats while he's relegated to acting human.

I love my family; even though we're separated by vast distanced, we'd do anything for each other. All of us are only a phone call away. You mess with one Cullen, you mess with them all.

And while I love my family, I need my alone time. More importantly, I need my alone time with the boy that I met at the restaurant right before the Marauders attacked. It turns out that his name is Roderick and he was not killed.

Roderick and I stand at opposite ends of the room. He's dressed in clothes that are casual but not overly flashy; it's probably the nicest thing that he has. I'm wearing a lovely red dress with high heeled shoes to break up the monotony of wearing boots every day. I bought the dress at a harvest festival some two hundred miles south of here and until now I've never had an excuse to wear it.

Auntie Alice freaked out when she saw it; she physically gets ill when she sees me not wearing anything priced for less than four times what a farm boy like Roderick would make in a year. I love shopping and fancy dresses; but it was my mom who taught me the value of simpler (and cheaper) clothing.

I managed to dim the lights by putting a cloth over them. The night is lovely; there hasn't been a single monster in sight. Roderick's smile could light up the night; I'm obliged to return the gesture. Once again, he nearly melts when I flash my sweet smile.

Earlier he asked me about the tiny model Christmas tree that was brought by my family. They don't celebrate Christmas with the same dedication that I do, but they humour me. I told Roddy that it was just a little custom my family practiced.

This leads to that and soon me and the lover boy are gently waltzing to some of my favourite Christmas tunes. He doesn't ask about Christmas or the music; he just enjoys it all.

_Rocking around the Christmas tree_

_At the Christmas party hop_

_Mistletoe hung where you can see_

_Every couple tries to stop_

_Rocking around the Christmas tree_

_Let the Christmas spirit ring_

We dance slow and rhythmatic. We hardly touch each other but our touches are electric a la _Fire in the Disco_. Danger! Danger ! High voltage!

The song plays and we are at peace. Uncle Jasper once criticised Christmas for being nothing but a ploy to sell overpriced goods made in third world countries. Well, duh! Of course that's why they started Christmas but that's not what it's about.

We live in a horrible world; three days ago I saw something that shook my faith in humanity. I saw a bunch of monsters that could not be attributed to the machinations of vampires. Humans built those mechanical monstrosities and it honestly sickens me.

That's why we need Christmas and stuff like it. We need a reason to celebrate something in a mindless and horrific world like the one we live in. Even before the apocalypse, people suffered so much and for so little.

I don't care if it is a ploy to sell toys; if it gives me an excuse to hang out with family and loved ones then I'm all for it.

I'm staring into Roderick's eyes. They're blue and not very striking to behold. They are special for a reason that I can't describe. He is who he is and that alone makes him special; he doesn't have some special power and he wasn't engineered to catch my eye. He just is.

Suddenly something makes Roderick jump.

_I am the God of Hellfire and I bring you_

_Fire, I'll take you to burn_

_Fire, I'll take you to learn_

_Fire, I'll see you burn! _

Roddy jumps like a scared rabbit and it makes me laugh my panties nearly off. I'd forgotten about this little Christmas special. It turns out that my father has a little bit of punk rock in his soul. The first Christmas in the nuclear winter; he showed me to the Crazy World of Arthur Brown. I've been hooked ever since. No Christmas should be without a little hellfire.

Arthur Brown continues to singe his crazy and far out tunes.

_You fought hard and you saved and earned  
But all of it's going to burn  
And your mind, your tiny mind  
You know you've really been so blind  
Now's your time, burn your mind  
You're falling far too far behind  
Oh no, oh no, oh no, you're gonna burn_

I gently cup his face to calm him down and sure enough, he stops acting like Arthur Brown will rise from the grave and kill him.

Roddy is going to love the sex I'm about to give him.

* * *

Thank you everybody, thanks very much for reading this stuff. I had a lot of fun writing hits and some parts were a real challenge. Nessie thanks you and so does D. Special thanks to Lion in the Land and Shallowswan, who both helped me to write this up.

And if you're in the mood for a good TwilightxHellsing crossover then I reccomend that you check out _Alliances_ by Blacksand1. It's an amazing story that's good for the Twilight haters but still has something for Twilight lovers. It's definitely worth your time, believe me :)

Ta

Master of the Boot


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